delay, delay, delay

It is early December and I'm trying not to be frantic about preparing for Christmas. Our Advent calenders with chocolates are being opened every evening and Tim took over our little Advent nativity calender schedule so every child gets an equal number of turns lighting the Advent wreath candle, putting up the shepherd or animal figure, and blowing out the candle after prayers. We don't decorate the house until Guadete Sunday and I plan to harvest some greens and winterberry branches to fill the window boxes tomorrow. However, I wanted to take the children's picture for our Christmas card/letter. Yes, I'm one of those people that radio hosts make fun of, including a cheerful note that tells folks where we now live and highlights some of the bright spots of the year with our Christmas card. 

Today was the day I was going to make all the kids put on a red shirt, jeans, and a Santa hat, but several things conspired against me. Will worked at the local grocery store all day collecting food for the local food bank and didn't even get home until 3:30pm, which means dusk up here in Maine. Julia Ellen went outside and played with the neighbor's children, but refused to wear her mittens so she ended up screaming and had to be carried home and put her hands against my exposed belly to warm them up (the things we moms do for our babies). Then after she asked for a blanket, she promptly fell asleep in a chair ( I refuse to wake her up and hear her wailing, plus that doesn't make for good photos). Maggie asked for the camera to take a picture of said sleeping child and found that the batteries are dead because of Will's making stop-gap motion videos and I discovered that we don't have any replacement batteries here, even though I bought a huge package of them last week (I know exactly where they are in the farmhouse kitchen, along with my stand mixer which I need for making Christmas cookies). 

So... now in addition to my other chores/errands, I now need to pick up some batteries and reschedule photo taking day, find a place to buy a Christmas tree in our new town (one thing that is cheap here in Maine), and look for some cookie recipes that don't involve a great deal of beating.